The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) of the United Kingdom announced the shortlist for the 2024 CWA Dagger Awards on May 10.
The winners will be presented on July 4.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
Over My Dead Body by Maz Evans, (Headline)
The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron (Baskerville, John Murray)
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (Abacus, Little Brown)
Tell me What I Am, by Una Mannion (Faber & Faber)
Black River, by Nilanjana Roy (Pushkin Vertigo)
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Sutanto (HQ ,Harper Collins)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
All the Sinners Bleed, by S A Cosby (Headline, Hachette)
Ozark Dogs, by Eli Cranor (Headline Hachette)
Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Faber & Faber)
The Mantis by Kotaro Isaka, (Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House)
Gaslight by Femi Kayode (Raven Books, Bloomsbury)
Drowning, by T J Newman (Simon & Schuster)
ILP JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality.
In The Blink of An Eye, by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster UK)
The Golden Gate by Amy Chua, (Corvus, Atlantic Books)
The Maiden, by Kate Foster (Mantle Pan Macmillan)
West Heart Kill, by Dann McDorman (Raven Books)
Go Seek by Michelle Teahan (Headline)
The Tumbling Girl by Bridget Walsh, (Gallic Books)
HISTORICAL DAGGER
This award is for the best historical crime novel, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made.
Clara & Olivia, by Lucy Ashe (Magpie, Oneworld Publications)
Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare (HQ, HarperCollins)
A Bitter Remedy by Alis Hawkins (Canelo)
Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar (No Exit Press)
Scarlet Town by Leonora Nattrass (Viper, Profile Books)
Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry (Canongate Books)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
This award is for a crime novel not originally written in English and which has been translated into English for UK publication.
Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado, (translated by Nick Caistor,) Macmillan
The Sins Of Our Fathers by Asa Larsson (translated by Frank Perry), Maclehose Press
Nothing Is Lost, by Cloé Mehdi (translated by Howard Curtis), Europa Editions UK
The Consultant, by Im Seong-sun (translated by An Seong Jae,) Raven Books
The Prey by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (translated by Victoria Cribb), Hodder & Stoughton
My Husband by Maud Ventura (translated by Emma Ramadan,) Hutchinson Heinemann
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality.
The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel (Simon & Schuster)
No Ordinary Day by Matt Johnson with John Murray (Ad Lib Publishers)
Devil’s Coin by Jennifer McAdam with Douglas Thompson (Ad Lib Publishers Ltd)
Seventy Times Seven by Alex Mar (Bedford Square Publishers)
How Many More Women? By Jennifer Robinson & Keina Yoshida (Endeavour)
Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare, (Vintage)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
This award is for any crime short story first published in the UK in English in a publication that pays for contributions, or broadcast in the UK in return for payment.
Safe Enough by Lee Child from An Unnecessary Assassin, edited by Lorraine Stevens, (Rivertree)
The Last Best Thing by Mia Dalia from Bang!:An Anthology of Modern Noir Fiction, edited by Andrew Hook, (Head Shot Press)
The Also-Rans by Benedict J Jones from Bang!:An Anthology of Modern Noir Fiction edited by Andrew Hook, (Head Shot Press)
The Divide by Sanjida Kay from The Book of Bristol edited by Joe Melia and Heather Marks, (Comma Press)
The Spendthrift and the Swallow, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate Books)
Best Served Cold by FD Quinn from An Unnecessary Assassin edited by Lorraine Stevens, (Rivertree)
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries, and who has supported libraries and their users.
(1) GAHAN WILSON TV. Episode One of Gahan Wilson’s Tales of Horror TV series debuted on Halloween at GahanWilson.net where it is streaming exclusively. They will be premiering one or two new episodes each month for the next two years. Episode One is “Phyllis” starring Bourke Floyd and Rachel Alig.
CHATGPT LOVES MY BOOK. [Item by Francis Hamit.]
STARMEN, A blended genre story merging Apache myths, witchcraft, science fiction, fantasy, history, detective, espionage, politics, and romance in a captivating narrative.
Had a conversation with ChatGPT that resulted in that promotional blurb.: Now I know a bit about AI from covering it during my trade magazine journalism career and my experiments with Artspace.ai. Any conversation with ChatGPT trains it to serve your needs but the “captivating narrative” bit at the end threw me for a bit. It seems almost human, doesn’t it, as if it has read the book.
So was that just a lucky accident or could the ChatGPT program have done this? Could it have reached into my computer and read my novel and then compared it to the thousands of other novels and their reviews that have been uploaded to its massive database? And now makes a value judgement like that?
It could do so in a nanosecond. There is an excerpt on Amazing Stories and other reviews of my other work online and several other books of mine in the Cloud at AWS..
Will ChatGPT become a literary arbiter because it will always know more than humans do. (And whose fault is that? We trained it.) I suspect that a ChatGPT review may become a default item for book promotion. I’m certainly going to use this just to see if it has any influence.
Two things; ChatGPT is also trained to be very polite so negative reviews are unlikely and a new book is now expected to get dozens of reviews from a variety of sources; publications, book bloggers, Book Tok influencers, etc. So it will not displace any human reviewer but be just another data point.
…Adams: I’m curious as to what you see when you look at Appalachia. What’s it look like from your perspective in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror world?
Allen: So here’s an interesting thing for me: Roanoke is unique. Some of it, I think, actually goes back to Nelson Bond having been based here, who was extremely active in the 1930s and ‘40s and ‘50s in the magazine scene that existed at that time. Writers like Sharyn McCrumb were making Roanoke, or at least the Roanoke region, their home base. Roanoke has this very robust culture for celebrating its writers, regardless of what they write. Those of us who are based here like myself, like Rod Belcher, who writes under the name R.S. Belcher, or Amanda McGee, who’s an up-and-coming writer whose work is definitely Appalachian and has a bit of witchery involved, we’ve experienced the benefit of that.
There’s no way for me to kind of sweepingly talk about everybody with an Appalachian connection. But there are some I do want to mention. Nathan Ballingrud, who lives in Asheville, is a horror writer who’s had some really high profile things happen lately. His first short story collection, “North American Lake Monsters,” was adapted into the Hulu series, “Monsterland.” The title story in that book, he considers to be an Appalachian story. I mentioned Rod Belcher whose novels have events in West Virginia and the Carolinas. Manly Wade Wellman might be the classic Golden Age writer who’s most associated with the Appalachians. He has a series of stories about John the Balladeer, or Silver John, who is a gentleman who has a guitar strung with silver strings. He wanders through this magical realist version of the Appalachian Mountains and has encounters that are very much based on Appalachian folklore….
(4) CHENGDU WORLDCON ROUNDUP. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] Today’s updates are briefer than planned, as I’ve been working on some other stuff, which might make it into tomorrow’s update.
Photos and video from the Iain M. Banks panel
This Weibo post has some photos from, and a brief write-up of, the Iain M. Banks panel. (A translated edition of Look to Windward has just been released in China.)
I’ve only briefly skimmed this subtitled 19-minute video about the con, so I don’t know how worth watching it is. The source seems to be a reporter who normally covers Silicon Valley and the tech industry, so there’s a fair bit of stuff about the “businessy” panels as well as things more likely to be of interest to Filers. There’s a bit of footage from the panel/presentation Nnedi Okorafor was on.
Group photos from the con
It’s not clear to me if the person who posted this image gallery to Xiaohongshu was a volunteer or some other member of the con team, but some of the faces seen in the photos will be recognizable to Filers.
From the Three-Body Problem eventChengdu Science Fiction Association Annual Meeting
(5) SFWA RESPONDS TO GOVERNMENT CALL FOR COMMENTS ON AI. SFWA has posted the text of a letter the organization sent to the US Copyright Office about artificial intelligence – “SFWA Comments on AI to US Copyright Office” at the SFWA Blog.
On October 30, the SFWA Board and the SFWA Legal Affairs Committee sent the following letter to the US Copyright Office in response to their August 2023 Notice of Inquiry regarding copyright law and policy issues in artificial intelligence, which is part of their AI Initiative….
Quoting from the letter:
… it is with much regret that we cannot yet speak in favor of using AI technology in the business of creating art.
The current crop of artificial intelligence systems owes a great debt to the work of creative human beings. Vast amounts of copyrighted creative work, collected and processed without regard to the moral and legal rights of its creators, have been copied into and used by these systems that appear to produce new creative work. These systems would not exist without the work of creative people, and certainly would not be capable of some of their more startling successes. However, the researchers who have developed them have not paid due attention to this debt. Everyone else involved in the creation of these systems has been compensated for their contributions—the manufacturers of the hardware on which it runs, the utility companies that generate their electrical power, the owners of their data centers and offices, and of course the researchers themselves. Even where free and open source software is used, it is used according to the licenses under which the software is distributed as a reflection of the legal rights of the programmers. Creative workers alone are expected to provide the fruits of their labor for free, without even the courtesy of being asked for permission. Our rights are treated as a mere externality.
Perhaps, then, creative workers uniquely benefit from the existence of these artificial intelligence systems? Unfortunately, to date the opposite has been the case: SFWA has thus far seen mainly harm to the business of writing and publishing science fiction and fantasy as a result of the release of AI systems.
For example, short fiction in our genres has long been recognized as a wellspring of the ideas that drive our work as well as inspiring works in film, games, and television. Writers in our genres rely on a thriving and accessible landscape, which includes online and paper magazines. Part of the success of these publications depends on an open submission process, in which writers may submit their stories without a prior business relationship. This has frequently served as a critical opportunity for new and marginalized authors to have their voices heard.
Over the last year, these venues, particularly the ones that pay higher rates for stories, have been inundated with AI-written stories. The editors uniformly report that these submissions are poorly conceived and written, far from being publishable, but the sheer volume materially interferes with the running of these magazines. Once submission systems are flooded with such content, it takes longer to read and reject a submission than it took someone to have an AI produce it in the first place. Every submitted work must be opened and considered to verify that the writers for whom the system was originally designed are not missed or forgotten….
…Eventually Russ would find a way to channel that disjunction into a remarkable body of literature, including the revolutionary novel The Female Man (1975).
That novel and a selection of other novels and stories by Russ have now been collected and reissued by the Library of America. Not long ago, I sat down with the volume’s editor, Nicole Rudick, to talk about Russ’s life, work, and her reputation as one of the fiercest critics ever to write about science fiction.
… JM: Let’s talk about Russ’s development as a writer. She grew up in New York, went to Cornell. She studied with Nabokov, correct?
NR: True, though I think it’s a little overstated. She studied with him in her last year at Cornell and dedicated “Picnic on Paradise” to him and to S.J. Perelman, but I think she came to feel a little silly about that. She named them both as stylistic influences, and she and Nabokov certainly share a metafictional approach, but she talked a lot more throughout her life about George Bernard Shaw.
She grew up loving science, and was a top 10 finalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search in 1953. She graduated high school early, and then went to Cornell and switched over to literature. She said that she came out to herself as a lesbian privately when she was a kid and went right back in because she had no models. She didn’t feel that it was real, that it could be done. And that continued at Cornell, where things were pretty traditional in terms of gender roles. And then she went to Yale and studied playwriting but found that she was not very good at it. When she returned to New York, she worked odd jobs, did some theater work, and made some adaptations for radio at WBAI. She was also writing stories and publishing them in little journals and SF magazines.
In the late 60s, she started writing stories about Alyx. She said it was the hardest thing she ever did in her life, to conceive of a tough, independent female protagonist and get it on the page. Feminism was not widespread in the United States at that moment and Russ wasn’t involved in consciousness-raising groups or anything like that, so it was a solitary time to be writing these sorts of things. But they did well. Picnic in Paradise, her novella about Alyx, won a Nebula Award. And then in ‘67, she was back at Cornell, as a teacher, and in ‘69, there was a colloquium on women in the United States organized by the university in the intercession period—Betty Friedan and Kate Millett and a bunch of other panelists talking about sexuality, race, and why women see each other the way that they do. They approached these issues as social problems, not individual problems. Russ was there, and her description of it is so funny—“Marriages broke up; people screamed at each other who had been friends for years…. The skies flew open.” A wave of feminism washed over Cornell, and she sat down and wrote “When it Changed” in the weeks afterwards. Six months later, she saw a novel in the story and wrote The Female Man. But she couldn’t find a publisher. She wanted it published by a trade press and they all rejected it. The excuses were like, “There’s more feminism than science fiction”—that from Viking Press. A lot of women editors were baffled by it and turned it down. It finally got bought by Frederik Pohl [at Bantam Books] in 1975….
The growing popularity of two crime fiction subgenres has prompted the creation of two new categories in the annual Crime Writers’ Association awards, including one for “cosy crime” – the subgenre of comforting mysteries that originated with Agatha Christie and is now most associated with Richard Osman.
The Daggers, as the CWA awards are known, recognise authors across 11 categories including historical crime, translated crime and lifetime contribution to crime writing. Next year, the two new awards will be the Twisted Dagger, for psychological thrillers, and the Whodunnit Dagger, for cosy crime….
I’m extremely pleased I was able to convince the legendary Mike Gold to head out for dinner the night before the con began.
Gold entered the comic industry as DC’s first public relations manager. But as I was astounded to discover, he did some PR earlier than that — as the media coordinator for the defense at the Chicago Conspiracy trial, acting as the intermediary between the press and the likes of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, when he was only a teen.
After DC, in 1983, he launched First Comics, where he edited Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar, Mike Grell’s Jon Sable Freelance, and many other classic series. Then after his move back to DC in 1986, he edited such titles as Legends, The Shadow, The Question, Action Comics Weekly, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, Blackhawk, and others.
In 2006, he co-founded ComicMix, and in 2011, he received the first Humanitarian Award from the Hero Initiative. And — since he’s five years older than I am — meaning I would have read Fantastic Four #1 at age six, and Mike at eleven, five years counting for a lot back then — I enjoyed digging into our differing perspectives about the early days of comics.
We discussed the way his hiring at DC Comics was all Neal Adams’ fault, how the guerrilla marketing he learned from Abbie Hoffman helped him quadruple direct market sales, the Steve Ditko Creeper cover which sent a not-so-secret message to publisher Carmine Infantino, why editor Murray Boltinoff compared Marvel Comics to the Beatles (and not in a good way), which staffer was “the most disgusting human being I’d ever met in my life,” how First Comics was born, his secret weapon for getting creators to deliver their work on time, our differing contemporaneous exposure to Fantastic Four #1 (and how his related to Merrick Garland), the way an off-hand comment led to a classic John Byrne comic, how the comic book field is like a donut shop, and much more.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born November 3, 1929 — Neal Barrett, Jr. Heavily nominated for many awards including a number of Hugos but he never won. He was Toastmaster at LoneStarCon 2. He was prolific writing over two dozen novels and some fifty pieces of short fiction including a novelization of the first Dredd film. As good much of his genre work was, I think his finest, best over the top work was the Wiley Moss series which led off with Pink Vodka Blues. He’s generously available at usual digital suspects. (Died 2014.)
Born November 3, 1933 — Jeremy Brett. Still my favorite Holmes of all time. He played him in four Granada TV series from 1984 to 1994 in a total of 41 episodes. One source said he was cast as Bond at one point, but turned the part down, feeling that playing 007 would harm his career. Lazenby was cast instead. (Died 1995.)
Born November 3, 1942 — Martin Cruz Smith, 81. Best remembered for Gorky Park, the Russian political thriller, but he’s also done a number of genre novels in The Indians Won (alternate history), Gypsy in Amber and Canto for a Gypsy (PI with psychic powers) and two wonderful pulpish novels, The Inca Death Squad and Code Name: Werewolf.
Born November 3, 1952 — Eileen Wilks, 71. Her principal genre series is the World of Lupi, a FBI procedural intertwined with shapeshifters, dragons and the multiverse. Highly entertaining, sometimes considered romance novels though I don’t consider them so. The audiobooks are amazing as well!
Born November 3, 1953 — Kate Capshaw, 70. Best known as Willie Scott in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (which I’ll confess I’ve watched but a few times unlike the first film which I’ve watched way too much), and she was in Dreamscape as well. She retired from acting several decades ago.
Born November 3, 1963 — Brian Henson, 60. Can we all agree that The Happytime Murders should never have been done? Wash it out of your consciousness with Muppet Treasure Island or perhaps The Muppet Christmas Carol. If you want something darker, he was a puppeteer on The Witches, and the chief puppeteer on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And he voices Hoggle in Labyrinth.
Born November 3, 1977 — David Edison, 46. His Waking Engine series, beginning with the rather excellent Waking Engine novel, an urban fantasy set in the afterlife, would’ve been great. His only other novel, Sandymancer, merges fantasy and hard SF.
In 1975, four years after the release of The French Connection, William Friedkin revealed to a reporter the inspiration for the film’s celebrated car chase scene.
It was the cover of a comic book: a man runs terrified on elevated tracks, just a few steps ahead of a train. He is handsome and athletic. Save for a domino mask, he is dressed like a classic Hollywood detective, in a blue suit and loose tie; he bears no resemblance to Gene Hackman’s slovenly everyman “Popeye” Doyle. The cover was from The Spirit, a comic that ran as a seven-page newspaper insert throughout the 40s and early 50s. The series, created by Will Eisner, was admired for its black humor, innovative compositions, shocking violence, and its setting in a precisely realized urbanscape. “Look at the dramatic use of montage, of light and sound,” Friedkin told the reporter. “See the dynamic framing that Eisner employs, and the deep, vibrant colors.”
Friedkin may not have been telling the truth. The comic he showed the reporter was a reprint that had been published after the release of The French Connection. The stories were three decades old, but the covers were new. Still, it was good publicity for the project he was then planning, a feature-length pilot for an NBC series that would feature the Spirit, aka Denny Colt, a detective who has risen from the dead, lives in a cemetery, and fights crime with his wits, his fists, and a willingness to withstand pain that borders on masochism….
As a longtime fan of JRR Tolkien, I’ve long felt put out by Giorgia Meloni’s bizarre obsession with The Lord of the Rings. Over the years, Italy’s ultra-conservative prime minister has quoted passages in interviews, shared photos of herself reading the novel and even posed with a statue of the wizard Gandalf as part of a campaign. In her autobiography-slash-manifesto, she dedicates several pages to her “favourite book”, which she refers to at one point as being a “sacred” text. When I read the news this week that Italy’s culture ministry is spending €250,000 to organise a Tolkien show at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, and that Meloni will attend the opening, I couldn’t help wondering: why? What is this government trying to achieve by stamping its mark so aggressively on one of the world’s most loved fantasy sagas?
My Italian friends don’t get the fuss. This is everyday politics, they say, a simple branding exercise to soften Meloni’s image. Perhaps. But there’s a deeper, and frankly stranger, side to this story. When The Lord of the Rings first hit Italian shelves in the 1970s, the academic Elémire Zolla wrote a short introductionin which he interpreted the book as an allegory about “pure” ethnic groups defending themselves against contamination from foreign invaders. Fascist sympathisers in the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) quickly jumped on the provocation. Inspired by Zolla’s words, they saw in Tolkien’s world a space where they could explore their ideology in socially acceptable terms, free from the taboos of the past. Meloni, an MSI youth wing member, developed her political consciousness in that environment. As a teenager she even attended a “Hobbit Camp”, a summer retreat organised by the MSI in which participants dressed up in cosplay outfits, sang along to folk ballads and discussed how Tolkienian mythologies could help the post-fascist right find credibility in a new era….
(12) STREAMING TOP 10. JustWatch has released the top 10 streaming movies and TV shows for October 2023.
(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Marvel Studios’ Echo” official trailer dropped today. The series begins streaming January 10 on @DisneyPlus and @Hulu.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Francis Hamit, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Ersatz Culture, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
The Diamond Dagger recognizes authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre, and is regarded as one of the foremost awards hosted in Britain for crime writing.
Walter Mosley said: “At the beginning of my writing career I was fortunate enough to be awarded the CWA’s New Blood Dagger, otherwise called the John Creasey Award. That was the highest point of my experience as a first book author. Since then, I have picked up other honours along the way but the only award that comes near the Diamond Dagger is the MWA’s Grand Master nod. These two together make the apex of a career that I never expected.”
The Daggers were first given in 1955, but for the first five years CWA called its top honor the Crossed Red Herring Award.
The award’s shortlist will come out May 13, and the winners will be revealed at a ceremony on June 29.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
NEXT OF KIN by KIA ABDULLAH (HarperCollins • HQ)
THE CHRISTMAS MURDER GAME by ALEXANDRA BENEDICT (Bonnier Books UK • Zaffre)
RABBIT HOLE by MARK BILLINGHAM (Little, Brown • Sphere)
CITY OF VENGEANCE by DV BISHOP (Pan Macmillan • Macmillan)
BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME by JACQUELINE BUBLITZ (Little, Brown • Sphere)
SUNSET SWING by RAY CELESTIN (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
RAZORBLADE TEARS by SA COSBY (Headline Publishing Group • Headline)
THE LAST THING TO BURN by WILL DEAN (Hodder & Stoughton)
THE HOUSE UPTOWN by MELISSA GINSBURG (Faber)
THE UNWILLING by JOHN HART (Bonnier Books UK • Zaffre)
A SLOW FIRE BURNING by PAULA HAWKINS (Transworld • Doubleday)
LIGHTSEEKERS by FEMI KAYODE (Bloomsbury Publishing • Raven)
I KNOW WHAT I SAW by IMRAN MAHMOOD (Bloomsbury Publishing • Raven)
THE SHADOWS OF MEN by ABIR MUKHERJEE (Penguin Random House • Harvill Secker)
THE KILLING HILLS by CHRIS OFFUTT (No Exit Press)
THE STONING by PETER PAPATHANASIOU (Quercus • MacLehose)
THE TRAWLERMAN by WILLIAM SHAW (Quercus • riverrun)
DAUGHTERS OF NIGHT by LAURA SHEPHERD-ROBINSON (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MURDER by ROSALIND STOPPS (HarperCollins • HQ)
BRAZILIAN PSYCHO by JOE THOMAS (Quercus • Arcadia)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
A MAN NAMED DOLL by JONATHAN AMES (Pushkin Press • Pushkin Vertigo)
FIND YOU FIRST by LINWOOD BARCLAY (HarperCollins • HQ)
EXIT by BELINDA BAUER (Transworld Publishers • Bantam Press)
THE PACT by SHARON BOLTON (Orion Publishing Group)
THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE by STEVE CAVANAGH (Orion Publishing Group)
SUNSET SWING by RAY CELESTIN (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
RAZORBLADE TEARS by SA COSBY (Headline Publishing Group)
DEAD GROUND by MW CRAVEN (Little, Brown • Constable)
THE PLOT by JEAN HANFF KORELITZ (Faber)
DREAM GIRL by LAURA LIPPMAN (Faber)
RIZZIO by DENISE MINA (Birlinn • Polygon)
THE LONELY ONES by HÅKAN NESSER (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality.
WELCOME TO COOPER by TARIQ ASHKANANI (Thomas & Mercer)
SIXTEEN HORSES by GREG BUCHANAN (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
REPENTANCE by ELOÍSA DÍAZ (Orion Publishing Group • Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
HUNTED by ANTONY DUNFORD (Hobeck Books)
THE MASH HOUSE by ALAN GILLESPIE (Unbound • Unbound Digital)
RAFT OF STARS by ANDREW J GRAFF (HarperCollins • HQ)
THE APPEAL by JANICE HALLETT (Profile Books • Viper Books)
FALLING by TJ NEWMAN (Simon & Schuster)
WHERE RAVENS ROOST by KARIN NORDIN (HarperCollins • HQ)
THE STONING by PETER PAPATHANASIOU (Quercus • MacLehose Press)
HOW TO KIDNAP THE RICH by RAHUL RAINA (Little, Brown)
A MUMBAI MURDER MYSTERY by MEETI SHROFF-SHAH (Joffe Books)
THE SOURCE by SARAH SULTOON (Orenda Books)
WAKING THE TIGER by MARK WIGHTMAN (Hobeck Books)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
This award is for a crime novel not originally written in English and which has been translated into English for UK publication.
GIRLS WHO LIE by EVA BJÖRG ÆGISDÓTTIR Translated by VICTORIA CRIBB (Orenda Books)
HOTEL CARTAGENA by SIMONE BUCHHOLZ Translated by RACHEL WARD (Orenda Books)
RICCARDINO by ANDREA CAMILLERI Translated by STEPHEN SARTARELLI (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
SEAT 7A by SEBASTIAN FITZEK Translated by STEVE ANDERSON (Head of Zeus)
BULLET TRAIN by KŌTARŌ ISAKA Translated by SAM MALISSA (Penguin Random House • Harvill Secker)
HEATWAVE by VICTOR JESTIN Translated by SAM TAYLOR (Simon & Schuster • Scribner)
OXYGEN by SACHA NASPINI Translated by CLARISSA BOTSFORD (Europa Editions UK)
PEOPLE LIKE THEM by SAMIRA SEDIRA Translated by LARA VERGNAUD (Bloomsbury Publishing • Raven Books)
THE RABBIT FACTOR by ANTTI TUOMAINEN Translated by DAVID HACKSTON (Orenda Books)
THE SCORPION’S HEAD by HILDE VANDERMEEREN Translated by LAURA WATKINSON (Pushkin Press • Pushkin Vertigo)
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality.
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW: STORIES OF HUMAN CRUELTY AND COMPASSION by DR GWEN ADSHEAD & EILEEN HORNE (Faber)
THE SEVEN AGES OF DEATH by DR RICHARD SHEPHERD (Penguin Random House • Michael Joseph)
THE JIGSAW MURDERS by JEREMY CRADDOCK (The History Press)
THE DUBLIN RAILWAY MURDER by THOMAS MORRIS (Penguin Random House • Harvill Secker)
WHAT LIES BURIED by KERRY DAYNES (Hachette UK • Octopus)
THE UNUSUAL SUSPECT by BEN MACHELL (Canongate Books)
THE GOOD GIRLS by SONIA FALEIRO (Bloomsbury Publishing • Bloomsbury Circus)
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LYDIA HARVEY: A TRUE STORY OF SEX, CRIME AND THE MEANING OF JUSTICE by JULIA LAITE (Profile Books)
WE ARE BELLINGCAT by ELIOT HIGGINS (Bloomsbury Publishing)
EMPIRE OF PAIN by PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE (Pan Macmillan • Picador)
THE IRISH ASSASSINS: CONSPIRACY, REVENGE AND THE MURDERS THAT STUNNED AN EMPIRE by JULIE KAVANAGH (Atlantic Books • Grove Press UK)
HISTORICAL DAGGER
This award is for the best historical crime novel, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made.
APRIL IN SPAIN by JOHN BANVILLE (Faber)
CITY OF VENGEANCE by DV BISHOP (Pan Macmillan • Macmillan)
SUNSET SWING by RAY CELESTIN (Pan Macmillan • Mantle)
CROW COURT by ANDY CHARMAN (Unbound)
NOT ONE OF US by ALIS HAWKINS (Canelo)
THE DROWNED CITY by KJ MAITLAND (Headline)
WHERE GOD DOES NOT WALK by LUKE McCALLIN (No Exit Press)
EDGE OF THE GRAVE by ROBBIE MORRISON (Pan Macmillan • Macmillan)
A CORRUPTION OF BLOOD by AMBROSE PARRY (Canongate Books)
BLACKOUT by SIMON SCARROW (Headline)
THE ROYAL SECRET by ANDREW TAYLOR (HarperCollins • Harper Fiction)
THE CANNONBALL TREE MYSTERY by OVIDIA YU (Little, Brown Book Group • Constable)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
This award is for any crime short story first published in the UK in English in a publication that pays for contributions, or broadcast in the UK in return for payment.
BLINDSIDED by CAROLINE ENGLAND in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time; Editor: Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing)
THE VICTIM by AWAIS KHAN in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time; Editor: Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing)
NEW TRICKS by MATT WESOLOWSKI in Afraid of the Shadows; Editor: Miranda Jewess (Criminal Minds)
LONDON by JO NESBØ in The Jealousy Man and other stories; Editor: Robert Ferguson (Penguin Random House • Harvill Secker)
WITH THE OTHERS by TM LOGAN in Afraid of the Shadows; Editor: Miranda Jewess (Criminal Minds)
THE CLIFTON VAMPIRE by TEKINSEY in Afraid of the Shadows; Editor: Miranda Jewess (Criminal Minds)
FLESH OF A FANCY WOMAN by PAUL MAGRS in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time; Editor: Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing)
CHANGELING by BRYONY PEARCE in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time; Editor: Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing)
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by RAVEN DANE in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time; Editor: Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing)
WHEN I GROW UP by ROBERT SCRAGG in Afraid of the Shadows; Editor: Miranda Jewess (Criminal Minds)
PUBLISHERS’ DAGGER
This prestigious Dagger is awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year.
AMAZON
THOMAS & MERCER
BLOOMSBURY
RAVEN BOOKS
FABER & FABER
HACHETTE UK
QUERCUS HARPERCOLLINS
HARPER FICTION ONEWORLD PUBLICATIONS
POINT BLANK PAN
MACMILLAN
MANTLE
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
MICHAEL JOSEPH
PROFILE BOOKS
VIPER
PUSHKIN PRESS
PUSHKIN VERTIGO TITAN BOOKS
DEBUT DAGGER
A competition for the opening of a crime novel and synopsis.
HENRY’S BOMB by KEVIN BARTLETT
LUFKIN, TEXAS by KATHERINE FUTERS HOLLOWAY CASTLE by LAURA ASTON HILL
THE 10:12 by ANNA MALONEY
THE MERCY SEAT by RACHEL NIXON
THE TWO MURDERS AT MANOR PARK by ELIZABETH OPALKA
BLOOD CASTE by SHYLASHRI SHANKAR
DEAD RECKONING by JENNIFER SLEE and JESSICA SLEE
THE DEAD OF EGYPT by DAVID SMITH
THE DIEPPE LETTERS by LIZ RACHEL WALKER
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries, and who has supported libraries and their users.
BEN AARONOVITCH
LIN ANDERSON
MARK BILLINGHAM
SUSAN HILL
EDWARD MARSTON
KATE RHODES
SARA SHERIDAN
CATH STAINCLIFFE
REBECCA TOPE
MARGERY ALLINGHAM SHORT STORY COMPETITION
BLACK TIE FOR MURDER by CRAIG BOWLSBY
SECRETS IN THE FAMILY ATTIC by HANNAH BROWN
WHEELING AND DEALING by CAREY COOMBS
SAY CHEESE by WILLIAM CROTTY
UNFOUND by MARY-JANE HARBOTTLE
THE EXCEPTIONAL DEATH OF SIR THADDEUS PARKER by TOM HOLROYD
LOCKED IN by SCOTT HUNTER
THE MISSING PIECE by DEBORAH MANTLE
A FACE FOR MURDER by JUDITH O’REILLY
WEIGHTS AND BIASES by ALEXANDRE SADEGHI
BAD TIMING by PAUL SPENCER
BOXED IN by MARK THIELMAN
DIAMOND DAGGER
Awarded every year to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, and who has made a significant contribution to the genre. Votes from CWA members go forward to be deliberated on by an independent panel. This year’s recipient is —
The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) of the United Kingdom has announced the 2021 Dagger Awards winners.
The Daggers were first given in 1955, but for the first five years CWA called its top honor the Crossed Red Herring Award.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End (Zaffre,)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
Michael Robotham: When She Was Good (Sphere)
JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir: The Creak on the Stairs (Orenda)
SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER
Vaseem Khan: Midnight at Malabar House (Hodder & Stoughton)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
Yun Ko-eun: The Disaster Tourist, translated by Lizzie Buehler (Serpent’s Tail)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
Clare Mackintosh: “Monsters” in First Edition: Celebrating 21 Years of Goldsboro Books (The Dome Press)
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
Sue Black: Written in Bone (Doubleday)
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
Peter May
DEBUT DAGGER
A competition for the opening of a crime novel and synopsis, chosen by judges: bestselling author Leigh Russell, editor Stephanie Glencross (of Gregory and Company), Editorial Director at Bonnier Zaffre Katherine Armstrong and director of literary agency A.M. Heath and Co. Oli Munson.
The Daggers were first given in 1955, but for the first five years CWA called its top honor the Crossed Red Herring Award.
The award’s winners will be revealed at a ceremony on July 10.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
S A Cosby: Blacktop Wasteland (Headline)
Ben Creed: City of Ghosts (Welbeck Fiction)
Nicci French: House of Correction (Simon & Schuster)
Robert Galbraith: Troubled Blood (Sphere)
Elly Griffiths: The Postscript Murders (Quercus)
Thomas Mullen: Midnight Atlanta (Little, Brown)
Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End (Zaffre,)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
Robert Galbraith: Troubled Blood (Sphere)
Michael Robotham: When She Was Good (Sphere)
Catherine Ryan Howard: The Nothing Man (Atlantic Books)
Stuart Turton: The Devil and the Dark Water (Raven Books)
Ruth Ware: One by One (Harvill Secker)
Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End (Zaffre)
JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir: The Creak on the Stairs (Orenda)
Ben Creed: City of Ghosts (Welbeck Publishing)
Egan Hughes: The One That Got Away (Sphere)
S W Kane: The Bone Jar (Thomas & Mercer)
Stephen Spotswood: Fortune Favours the Dead (Wildfire)
John Vercher: Three Fifths (Pushkin Press)
SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER
John Banville: Snow (Faber)
Vaseem Khan: Midnight at Malabar House (Hodder & Stoughton)
Chris Lloyd: The Unwanted Dead (Orion Fiction)
Michael Russell: The City Under Siege (Constable)
David S. Stafford: Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons (Allison & Busby)
Ovidia Yu: The Mimosa Tree Mystery (Constable)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
Fredrik Backman: Anxious People, translated by Neil Smith (Michael Joseph,)
Roxanne Bouchard: The Coral Bride, translated by David Warriner (Orenda Books)
Yun Ko-eun: The Disaster Tourist, translated by Lizzie Buehler (Serpent’s Tail)
D A Mishani: Three, translated by Jessica Cohen (Riverrun)
Mikael Niemi: To Cook a Bear, translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (Maclehose Press)
Agnes Ravatn: The Seven Doors, translated by Rosie Hedger (Orenda Books)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
Robert Scragg: “A Dog is for Life, Not Just for Christmas” in Afraid of the Christmas Lights, edited by Robert Scragg
Elle Croft: “Deathbed” in Afraid of the Light, edited by Robert Scragg
Dominic Nolan: “Daddy Dearest” in Afraid of the Light, edited by Robert Scragg
Victoria Selman: “Hunted” in Afraid of the Christmas Lights, edited by Robert Scragg
Clare Mackintosh: “Monsters” in First Edition: Celebrating 21 Years of Goldsboro Books (The Dome Press)
James Delargy: “Planting Nan” in Afraid of the Light, edited by Robert Scragg
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
Sue Black: Written in Bone (Doubleday)
Becky Cooper: We Keep the Dead Close (William Heinemann)
Andrew Harding: These Are Not Gentle People (MacLehose)
Debora Harding: Dancing with the Octopus (Profile Books)
Nick Hayes: The Book of Trespass (Bloomsbury Circus)
Ben MacIntyre: Agent Sonya (Viking)
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
Lisa Jewell
Peter May
Denise Mina
James Oswald
L J Ross
C L Taylor
DEBUT DAGGER
A competition for the opening of a crime novel and synopsis, chosen by judges: bestselling author Leigh Russell, editor Stephanie Glencross (of Gregory and Company), Editorial Director at Bonnier Zaffre Katherine Armstrong and director of literary agency A.M. Heath and Co. Oli Munson.
Ashley Harrison: The Looking Glass Spy
Fiona McPhillips: Underwater
Biba Pearce: Rough Justice
Hannah Redding: Deception
Edward Regenye: Lightfoot
Jennifer Wilson O’Raghallaigh: Mandatory Reporting
The shortlist for a Norwegian award and the winner of a British career achievement award have been announced.
SILVER KNIFE
The nominees for the 2021 Norwegian Sølv Kniven [Silver Knife] were announced on February 16. [English title translations via Shotsmag Confidential.]
Kjell Ola Dahl for «Assistenten» [The Assistant]
Frode Eie Gjørtz-Larsen for «Så ble det kaldt» [So It Got Cold]
Sven Petter Myhr Næss for «Skjebnesteinen» [Fate Stone].
The Silver Knife is awarded during the crime fiction festival “Blodig alvor i landsbyen” [“Bloody seriousness in the village”]. The winner will be announced on March 16.
DIAMOND DAGGER
Martina Cole
The Crime Writers’ Association (UK) has recognized Martina Cole with the 2021 CWA Diamond Dagger, “the highest honour in British crime writing.”
The long-reigning Queen of Crime Drama is a publishing powerhouse. Martina has written 25 novels, all published by Headline, seventeen of which reached No.1 and her books have collectively spent over 4 years in the bestseller charts. Total sales stand at over 17 million copies, making her Britain’s bestselling female crime writer and with The Faithless she became the first British female adult audience novelist to break the £50 million sales mark since Nielsen Bookscan records began. Her books have been translated into 31 languages and adapted for multiple stage plays and television series.
The Diamond Dagger award goes to authors “whose crime-writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to crime fiction writing.”
Martina Cole acknowledged the award: “It means so much to me to be receiving this prestigious award from my peers at the CWA. I can’t believe it’s nearly thirty years since Dangerous Lady was published – some people dismissed me as an Essex girl and a one-book wonder – but as one of my favourite songs goes: ‘I’m still here’!”
The Daggers were first given in 1955, but for the first five years CWA called its top honor the Crossed Red Herring Award.
The award’s shortlist will come out this summer, and the winners will be revealed at a ceremony on October 22.
GOLD DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality.
Claire Askew: What You Pay For (Hodder & Stoughton)
Gary Bell: Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Raven Books)
Lou Berney: November Road (Harper Fiction)
MW Craven: Black Summer (Constable)
John Fairfax: Forced Confessions (Little, Brown)
Lucy Foley: The Guest List (Harper Fiction)
Elly Griffiths: The Lantern Men (Quercus Fiction)
Chris Hammer: Silver (Wildfire)
Mick Herron: Joe Country (John Murray)
SG MacLean: The Bear Pit (Quercus Fiction)
Patrick McGuinness: Throw Me to the Wolves (Jonathan Cape)
Abir Mukherjee: Death in the East (Harvill Secker)
Alex North: The Whisper Man (Michael Joseph)
Scott Phillips: That Left Turn at Albuquerque (Soho Crime)
Michael Robotham: Good Girl, Bad Girl (Sphere)
Tim Weaver: No One Home (Michael Joseph)
IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER
Eligible books in this category are thrillers set in any period and include, but are not limited to, spy fiction, psychological thrillers and action/adventure stories.
Lou Berney: November Road (Harper Fiction)
Tom Chatfield: This is Gomorrah (Hodder & Stoughton)
Karen Cleveland: Keep You Close (Bantam Press)
AA Dhand: One Way Out (Bantam Press)
Eva Dolan: Between Two Evils (Raven Books)
Helen Fields: Perfect Kill (Avon)
Oliver Harris: A Shadow Intelligence (Little, Brown)
Peter Heller: The River (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Greg Iles: Cemetery Road (Harper Fiction)
David Koepp: Cold Storage (HQ)
Adrian McKinty: The Chain (Orion Fiction)
Alex North: The Whisper Man (Michael Joseph)
Andrew Taylor: The King’s Evil (Harper Fiction)
JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER
This award is for the best crime novel by a first-time author of any nationality.
Steph Cha: Your House Will Pay (Faber & Faber)
Sherryl Clark: Trust Me, I’m Dead (Verve Books)
Samantha Downing: My Lovely Wife (Michael Joseph)
Philippa East: Little White Lies (HQ)
Andrew James Greig: Whirligig (Fledgling Press)
AS Hatch: This Dark Little Place (Serpent’s Tail)
James Von Leyden: A Death in the Medina (Constable)
Deborah Masson: Hold Your Tongue (Corgi)
Owen Matthews: Black Sun (Bantam Press)
Felicity McLean: The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone (Point Blank)
Robin Morgan-Bentley: The Wreckage (Trapeze)
Trevor Wood: The Man on the Street (Quercus Fiction)
SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER
This award is for the best historical crime novel, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made.
Alis Hawkins: In Two Minds (The Dome Press)
Philip Kerr: Metropolis (Quercus Fiction)
SG MacLean: The Bear Pit (Quercus Fiction)
Abir Mukherjee: Death in the East (Harvill Secker)
SW Perry: The Serpent’s Mark (Corvus)
Alex Reeve: The Anarchists’ Club (Raven Books)
Gareth Rubin: Liberation Square (Michael Joseph)
SD Sykes: The Bone Fire (Hodder & Stoughton)
Andrew Taylor: The King’s Evil (Harper Collins)
Lynne Truss: The Man That Got Away (Raven Books)
Nicola Upson: Sorry for the Dead (Faber & Faber)
Ovidia Yu: The Paper Bark Tree Mystery (Constable)
CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER
This award is for a crime novel not originally written in English and which has been translated into English for UK publication.
Edoardo Albinati: The Catholic School, translated by Anthony Shugaar (Picador)
Marion Brunet: Summer of Reckoning, translated by Katherine Gregor (Bitter Lemon Press)
Hannelore Cayre: The Godmother, translated by Stephanie Smee (Old Street Publishing)
K Ferrari: Like Flies from Afar, translated by Adrian Nathan West (Canongate Books)
Jorge Galán: November, translated by Jason Wilson (Constable)
Johana Gustawsson: Blood Song, translated by David Warriner (Orenda Books)
Jørn Lier Horst: The Cabin, translated by Anne Bruce (Michael Joseph)
Sergio Olguin: The Fragility of Bodies, translated by Miranda France (Bitter Lemon Press)
Leonardo Padura: Grab a Snake by the Tail, translated by Peter Bush (Bitter Lemon Press)
Antti Tuomainen: Little Siberia, translated by David Hackston (Orenda Books)
SHORT STORY DAGGER
This award is for any crime short story first published in the UK in English in a publication that pays for contributions, or broadcast in the UK in return for payment.
Fiona Cummins: Dead Weight in Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan (Titan Books)
Jeffery Deaver: Connecting the Dots in Invisible Blood, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Titan Books)
Jeffery Deaver: The Bully in Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan (Titan Books)
Paul Finch: The New Lad in Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan (Titan Books)
Christopher Fowler: The Washing in Invisible Blood, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Titan Books)
Christopher Fowler: Bryant and May and The Devil’s Triangle in Bryant and May: England’s Finest (Doubleday)
Lauren Henderson: #Me Too in Invisible Blood, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Titan Books)
Louise Jensen: The Recipe in Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan (Titan Books)
Dean Koontz: Kittens in Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B Kane and Marie O’Regan (Titan Books)
Syd Moore: Easily Made in 12 Strange Days of Christmas (Point Blank Press)
ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
This award is for any non-fiction work on a crime-related theme by an author of any nationality.
Casey Cep: Furious Hours (William Heinemann)
Julia Ebner: Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Peter Everett: Corrupt Bodies (Icon Books)
Caroline Goode: Honour: Achieving Justice for Banaz Mahmod (Oneworld Publications)
Joanna Jolly: Red River Girl (Virago)
Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey: She Said (Bloomsbury Circus)
Sean O’Connor: The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury (Simon & Schuster)
Adam Sisman: The Professor and the Parson: A Story of Desire, Deceit and Defrocking (Profile Books)
Susannah Stapleton: The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective (Picador)
Fred Vermorel: Dead Fashion Girl: A Situationist Detective Story (Strange Attractor Press)
DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY
The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established crime writer who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries, and who has supported libraries and their users.
Benjamin Black
Christopher Brookmyre
Jane Casey
Paul Finch
Alex Gray
Mick Herron
Quintin Jardine
Lisa Jewell
Erin Kelly
Adrian McKinty
Denise Mina
James Oswald
DEBUT DAGGER
A competition for the opening of a crime novel and synopsis, chosen by judges: bestselling author Leigh Russell, editor Stephanie Glencross (of Gregory and Company), Editorial Director at Bonnier Zaffre Katherine Armstrong and director of literary agency A.M. Heath and Co. Oli Munson.
Barbara Austin: Lowlands
Anna Caig: The Spae-Wife
Loraine Fowlow: Undercut
Leanne Fry: Whipstick
Kim Hays: Pesticide
Jack Kapica: Blogger’s End
Nicholas Morrish: Emergency Drill
Josephine Moulds: Revolution Never Lies
Michael Munro: Bitter Lake
Karen Taylor: Grim Fairy Tale
Jane Wing: Dark Pastimes
Sarah Yarwood-Lovett: A Generation of Vipers
PUBLISHERS’ DAGGER
This prestigious Dagger is awarded annually to the Best Crime and Mystery Publisher of the Year.
Allison & Busby
Bitter Lemon
Harvill Secker
Head of Zeus
HQ
Michael Joseph
Orenda
Orion
Pushkin Vertigo
Raven
Severn House
Sphere
DIAMOND DAGGER
Awarded every year to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, and who has made a significant contribution to the genre. Votes from CWA members go forward to be deliberated on by an independent panel. This year’s recipient is —
2019 CWA Dagger Awards: British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA)announced the winners of the 2019 CWA Dagger Awards in London, England, on October 24.
CWA Gold Dagger:
The Puppet Show, by M.W. Craven: (Constable)
CWA John Creasey (New Blood):
Scrublands, by Chris Hammer (Wildfire)
CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:
The Spy and the Traitor: The
Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, by Ben Macintyre (Viking)
CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:
To the Lions, by Holly Watt (Bloomsbury)
CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger:
Destroying Angel, by S.G. MacLean: (Quercus)
CWA International Dagger:
A Long Night in Paris, by Dov Alfon; translated by
Daniella Zamir (Maclehose Press)
CWA Short Story Dagger:
“The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing,” by
Danuta Reah (from The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and Other
Fantastic Female Fables, by Danuta Reah [aka Danuta Kot];
Fantastic)
Highly commended
“I Detest Mozart,” by Teresa
Solana (from The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other
Stories, by Teresa Solana; Bitter Lemon Press)
Dagger in the Library:
Kate Ellis
Debut Dagger (for the opening of a crime novel by an uncontracted writer):
Wake, by Shelley Burr
Highly commended
Hardways, by Catherine Hendricks
Diamond Dagger Recipient
Robert Goddard
For a career of sustained excellence and a significant
contribution to the genre
Best Crime and Mystery Publisher
No Exit Press
STRAND CRITICS AWARD. The Strand Magazine announced the winners of its 2019 Strand Critics Awards
on July 11.
Best Mystery Novel
(Tie)
Transcription by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown and Company)
…All of a sudden this crazy story about my finishing THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING years ago is popping up everywhere. No, I am not going to provide links. I don’t want to reward purveyors of misinformation with hits.
I will, however, say for the record — no, THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING are not finished. DREAM is not even begun; I am not going to start writing volume seven until I finish volume six
It seems absurd to me that I need to state this. The world is round, the Earth revolves around the sun, water is wet… do I need to say that too? It boggles me that anyone would believe this story, even for an instant. It makes not a whit of sense. Why would I sit for years on completed novels? Why would my publishers — not just here in the US, but all around the world — ever consent to this? They make millions and millions of dollars every time a new Ice & Fire book comes out, as do I. Delaying makes no sense. Why would HBO want the books delayed? The books help create interest in the show, just as the show creates interest in the books.
So… no, the books are not done. HBO did not ask me to delay them. Nor did David & Dan. There is no “deal” to hold back on the books. I assure you, HBO and David & Dan would both have been thrilled and delighted if THE WINDS OF WINTER had been delivered and published four or five years ago… and NO ONE would have been more delighted than me.
(2) BUT THIS STORY IS TRUE.
Martin confirmed
a different report quoting his opinion of two characters created by Tolkien
and Rowling:
At the Q&A following the premiere of the new TOLKIEN film in Los Angeles last week, I did indeed say that Gandalf could kick Dumbledore’s ass.
Gandalf COULD kick Dumbledore’s ass. I mean, duh. He’s a maia, folks. Next best thing to a demigod. Gandalf dies and come back. Dumbledore dies and stays dead.
But if it will calm down all the Potterites out there, let me say that Gandalf could kick Melisandre’s ass too.
(3) HORRORMENTARY. The new drama Years and
Years, which follows a British family over the next 15 years began Tuesday
night on BBC1 in the UK, and will be screened on HBO in the US later in the
year. BBC contemplates: “How the near future became our greatest horror”.
…But if [J.G.] Ballard’s thinking was subversive at the time, now we’re beset by the nearest of ‘near future’ narratives. They are intent on imagining not what will become of us in thousands of millennia, or even in a few decades’ time – à la dystopian works like Blade Runner and Soylent Green, previously understood as ‘near future’ – but in as little as the next few years. In doing so, these near-near-future stories create realities that feel immediately recognisable to us, but invariably with a pretty unpleasant twist or three. In literature, these have gone hand in hand with the rise of the ‘mundane science fiction’ movement – which began in the mid-noughties and was built on “not wanting to imagine shiny, hard futures [but give a] sense of sliding from one version of our present into something slightly alienated”, says Roger Luckhurst, a professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature at London’s Birkbeck College and an expert in science fiction.
And, at the moment, such stories are particularly prevalent on the small-screen….
(4) BLACK MIRROR. The
show returns to Netflix on June 5:
…At the height of his writing career, Beaumont began to suffer from a mysterious ailment. “By 1964, he could no longer write. Meetings with producers turned disastrous. His speech became slower, more deliberate. His concentration worsened. . . . after a battery of tests at UCLA, Beaumont was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s Disease; he faced premature senility, aging, and an early death.” He died on February 21, 1967 at the age of thirty-eight.
(6) STORIES REBORN. Paula Guran’s anthology Mythic Journeys: Retold Myths and Legends was released yesterday by Night Shade Books.
The Native American trickster Coyote . . . the snake-haired Greek Gorgon Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone . . . Kaggen, creator of the San peoples of Africa . . . the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend . . . Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and beauty . . . Ys, the mythical sunken city once built on the coast of France . . . Ragnarok, the myth of a world destroyed and reborn . . . Jason and the Argonauts, sailing in search of the Golden Fleece . . .
Myths and legends are the oldest of stories, part of our collective consciousness, and the source from which all fiction flows. Full of magic, supernatural powers, monsters, heroes, epic journeys, strange worlds, and vast imagination, they are fantasies so compelling we want to believe them true.
A nuclear physicist by training, Friedman had devoted his life to researching and investigating UFOs since the late 1960s.
He was credited with bringing the 1947 Roswell Incident — the famous incident that gave rise to theories about UFOs and a U.S. military coverup — back into the mainstream conversation.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.
Apparently a big day in the history of B-movies.
May 15, 1953 — Phantom From Space premiered in theaters.
May 15,1959 — Invisible Invaders debuted in movie houses.
May 15, 1969 – Witchfinder General, starring Vincent Price, screened for the first time.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born May 15, 1856 — L. Frank Baum. I adore The Wizard of Oz film and I’m betting you know that it only covers about half of the novel which is a splendid read indeed. I’ll confess that I never read the numerous latter volumes in the Oz series, nor have I read anything by him. What’s the rest of his fiction like? (Died 1919.)
Born May 15, 1877 — William Bowen. His most notable work was The Old Tobacco Shop, a fantasy novel that was one runner-up for the inaugural Newbery Medal in 1922. He also had a long running children’s series with a young girl named Merrimeg whom a narrator told her adventures with all sorts of folkloric beings. (Died 1937.)
Born May 15, 1926 — Anthony Shaffer. His genre screenplays were the Hitchcock’s Frenzy and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. Though definitely not genre, he wrote the screenplays for a number of most excellent mysteries including Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express and Sleuth. (Died 2001.)
Born May 15, 1955 — Lee Horsley, 64. A performer who’s spent a lot of his career in genre undertakings starting with The Sword and the Sorcerer (and its 2010 sequel Tales of an Ancient Empire), horror films Nightmare Man, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face and Dismembered and even a bit of SF in Showdown at Area 51. Not sure where The Face of Fear falls has a it has a cop with psychic powers and a serial killer.
Born May 15, 1960 — Rob Bowman, 59. Producer of such series as Alien Nation, M.A.N.T.I.S., Quantum Leap, Next Generation, and TheX-Files. He has directed these films: The X-Files, Reign of Fire and Elektra. He directed one or several episodes of far too many genres series to list here.
Born May 15, 1966 — Greg Wise, 53. I’m including him solely as he’s in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. It is a film-within-a-film, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making of a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s 18th century metafictional novel Tristram Shandy. Not genre (possibly) but damn fun.
At a press conference [on May 10] at the New Mexico State Capitol Building in Santa Fe, hosted by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson announced that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program had advanced sufficiently to move the spaceline staff and space vehicles from Mojave, California to their commercial operations headquarters at Spaceport America, New Mexico. The move, which involves more than 100 staff, will commence immediately and continue through the summer, to minimise schooling disruption for families.
Virgin Galactic partnered with New Mexico in an agreement which saw the state complete construction of Spaceport America, the world’s first, purpose-built commercial spaceport, and Virgin Galactic committing to center its commercial spaceflight activities at the facilities once its vehicles and operations were ready for service.
(11) ZUBRIN’S CASE. The Space Review hosts Jeff Foust’s coverage of Robert Zubrin’s new book The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.
…The second part of the book tackles the question of why humanity should move out in the universe. The reasons are familiar ones, from scientific discoveries to new technologies to the survival of humanity itself. For example, Zubrin reiterates a belief, dating back to his The Case for Mars book more than 20 years ago, that a human settlement on Mars will require ingenuity to survive, stimulating new technologies from robotics to fusion power that might not be developed on Earth.
Zubrin offers a comprehensive plan, one rich in technical detail—perhaps too rich at times, with some passages filled with equations describing chemical processes needed to extract resources on Mars or other worlds or discussing the physics of advanced propulsion technologies. But it seems a little fanciful to talk about concepts for interstellar travel like antimatter and magnetic sails when we find it so difficult today simply to get to low Earth orbit reliably and inexpensively.
Lavie
Tidhar’s “Bag Man”, in The
Outcast Hours
anthology, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin, is one of the works longlisted
for the CWA Short Story Dagger Award.
Jane Green, bestselling author who traded England for New England
I’ve run out of space. Books are starting to get stacked up on the floor, underneath tables, underneath chairs, on top of tables. They’re everywhere. With no more room on the bookshelves, I’ve been eyeing this gorgeous French armoire that takes up an entire wall. That wall is just perfect for shelves and would make the room warmer. I know, however, that my husband really likes the armoire. He sees: storage, storage, storage. I see: books, books, books. We’ll see who wins.
For years, I couldn’t get rid of anything. I have had to learn to manage the flow. Paperbacks I tend not to keep unless I love them and know I’m going to reread them. Hardcovers are really hard for me to get rid of. They all signify a time in my life. They all have stories around the stories. I will sometimes just stand there and look at my books and remember.
Subscription publishers have tightened their paywalls, plugging leaks and reducing the number of articles readers access before subscribing. But as reader revenue becomes more of a focus, more sophisticated ways of dodging paying have emerged.
There have always been a number of low-tech ways to circumvent cookie-based metered paywalls, where the same content is freely available in some but not all cases. For instance deleting cookies, using multiple browsers and copying the URL are go-to methods, and are near impossible to mitigate against. However, over the last 18 months, publishers have started plugging these gaps.
In February, The New York Times started tightening its paywall so readers couldn’t access paywalled content by switching their device to incognito mode. A New York Times spokesperson said it’s too early to glean the impacts of these tests.
The 2019 Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans announce the shortlists for the Nommo Awards in all four categories – novel, novella, short story and comics/graphic novels.
The roughly 170 members of the African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) nominated works for the Awards long list and short lists. They will now have a three-month period to read the works and vote for the winners of the Awards.
The short-listed works must be speculative fiction created by Africans and published in calendar year 2018. The winners of the Ilube Nommo Award and the Comic/Graphic Novel award receive UD$ 1000.00. The winners of the novella and short story awards receive US$ 500.00. The ASFS thanks its patron Tom Ilube, CBE for his generosity.
The ASFS was founded in 2015. The creation of the Nommo Awards was announced at the Ake Festival in Abeokuta in November 2016. The winners will be announced at the Ake Festival in Lagos Nigeria in November.
This high-velocity maneuver is a nightmare if you’re a fly.
There’s a type of spider that can slowly stretch its web taut and then release it, causing the web to catapult forward and ensnare unsuspecting prey in its strands.
Triangle-weaver spiders use their own web the way humans might use a slingshot or a crossbow. Scientists from the University of Akron say this is a process called “power amplification,” and they published their research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
Research has shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi and bacteria helping to connect trees and plants to one another.
This subterranean social network, nearly 500 million years old, has become known as the “wood wide web”.
Now, an international study has produced the first global map of the “mycorrhizal fungi networks” dominating this secretive world.
Details appear in Nature journal.
Using machine-learning, researchers from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Stanford University in the US used the database of the Global Forest Initiative, which covers 1.2 million forest tree plots with 28,000 species, from more than 70 countries.
The Chinese Chang’e-4 rover may have confirmed a longstanding idea about the origin of a vast crater on the Moon’s far side.
The rover’s landing site lies within a vast impact depression created by an asteroid strike billions of years ago.
Now, mission scientists have found evidence that impact was so powerful it punched through the Moon’s crust and into the layer below called the mantle.
Chang’e-4 has identified what appear to be mantle rocks on the surface.
It’s something the rover was sent to the far side to find out.
Chunlai Li, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and colleagues have presented their findings in the journal Nature.
(19) GAME OF PYTHONS. Funny or Die shows why “Cersei isn’t the only hard-nosed negotiator Tyrion’s
ever faced.”
[Thanks to
John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge,
Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories.
Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Daniel Dern and
OGH.]
